Macomb lawmaker seeks repeal of abortion insurance

A Macomb County lawmaker has launched a longshot attempt to repeal Michigan’s controversial abortion insurance law that requires women to purchase a separate rider to their policy if they may want to terminate a pregnancy in the future.

State Rep. Sarah Roberts, a St. Clair Shores Democrat, hopes some of her Republican colleagues will re-consider after it was revealed in recent months that very few Michigan insurers offer women such a rider.

Pro-life Republican backers of the legislation, which became law in March, said they objected to co-mingling insurance funds, which resulted in those who morally object to abortion indirectly helping to pay for the procedures.

Because the law passed by the Legislature last December makes no exceptions for abortions related to rape or incest, the harshest Democrat critics of the law say it mandates “rape insurance.” Roberts said that women in particular who have no intention of having children should not be forced to buy special coverage.

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“This is an unfair law that requires a woman, in order to receive overall health care, to buy separate insurance while no man has to pay for separate insurance,” the lawmaker said.

Roberts is joined in her legislative crusade by Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer of East Lansing who turned the debate over the law into a national news story when she revealed on the Senate floor that she was raped as a college student.

Republican political observers give the Roberts-Whitmer repeal legislation no chance of success due to GOP dominance in the House and Senate and due to poor timing – the Legislature has recessed for the summer and might not take up any bills until after the November election.

But the Democratic duo still has the support of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which has warned of unintended consequences arising from the law. The ACOG has said that women who face problem pregnancies involving bleeding or infections – or the likelihood that their child will not live long outside the womb -- sometimes face medically induced “miscarriages” which are essentially abortions. But the language in the law treats all terminations of pregnancies the same and requires an insurance rider in order to gain coverage.

“Because of the way the law is written … some women may forego treatment and later have to pay as much as $10,000 for these expensive treatments and procedures,” Roberts said. “They may hurt their health as the mother, or hurt their future fertility.”

As for the overall insurance market, Democrats say they have found that, of the 42 health insurers operating in Michigan, only seven offer this type of rider. In addition, those riders are only offered on employer-based family health plans. In the individual market, no coverage of any kind is available, according to supporters of the Roberts and Whitmer bills.